


Golden Boy

by sticksandinfinitystones



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, I love Tony I swear, Other, Tony forgot about someone, media know about Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 12:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11669070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sticksandinfinitystones/pseuds/sticksandinfinitystones
Summary: It must be nice being Tony Stark's Golden Boy.





	Golden Boy

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER:  
> I love Tony Stark. I frickin adore the guy. He's my favourite MCU character. This is not meant as an anti-tony piece but just a perspective on Tony one might have if he left them behind. And I'm slightly pissed that MCU forgot all about Harley.   
> With that in mind; please enjoy!

Harley yanked the snow-covered boots off his feet and gave sigh of relief. After a long day of eleventh grade and a nice fresh dusting of snow in the mid-November date, Harley wanted nothing more than to just sink into the couch, in his shed and turn on whatever crap his run-down tv decided to display him.

When the wretched thing fizzled to life he found himself wishing he hadn’t turned it on at all.

“-Stark’s young protégé placed first in the science fair with his micro-industrial laser built from scraps he found from dumpster diving, one inside source tells us, who also revealed Stark himself was in attendance. Stark also took the liberty of donating $500,000 to the young man’s school after learning it’s funding was being cut for-“

Harley turned the tv off and sat in a still silence.

His gaze shifted over to the metal arm that sat under the darkened lamp at his work station.

_“Nice potato gun. Barrell’s a little long. Between that and the wide gage, it’s gonna diminish your FPS.”_

Yeah. Not exactly a micro-industrial laser, though, was it, Stark?

Harley was a smart kid. He played around with electro magnets. Tinkered with electronics, even helped build a make-shift iron man substitute.

But not smart enough, right, Tony?

It’d been about three years since Tony Stark had last acknowledged the kid who helped bring him back from the dead.

After the mandarin was defeated and Tony made the suit destroying spectacle, he checked in on Harley from time to time. In small ways, yes. But he checked in. He’d send Harley pieces of Stark tech for him to tinker with, quality tools, a check from time to time to help out his mom. Once or twice he’d popped up on skype to pick Harley’s brain on something he was working on.

Then, after about a year, the packages stopped coming. As did the calls. The checks stopped coming a few months following that.

Fast forward six months later, there’s some crazy guy in pyjamas swinging from building to building, climbing up walls and catching cars with his bare hands all over the youtube home page.

Meanwhile, Harley was replacing the duct tape over the leaky pipe in the kitchen because he had nothing appropriate to patch it with and no money to call a plumber.

Then, six months later, the same guy appeared next to iron man himself in an airport showdown in Germany, in significantly upgraded attire.

Meanwhile, Harley sat in the nurse’s office with a bloody nose after a brawl with the school bully.

A few months following that, the same guy stopped a hell-bent thief the media dubbed ‘The Vulture’ from hijacking one of Stark’s planes.

Meanwhile, Harley’s mom pawned off some of his best stark tech items to pay the gas bill.

Not long after that, Tony Stark was spotted spending a lot of time with an under-privileged teen from Queens that he’d apparently ‘taken under his wing’. The media called the kid a ‘genius of humble means’ that ‘made a warm impression in the cold heart of Stark’. Stark called the kid his ‘protégé’.

Meanwhile, Harley fiddled with the same busted wires in the same robotic arm he’d been working on for months, trying to make everything – _anything_ – work. To no avail.

It was later discovered that the kid was an orphan, living with his Aunt, who was the only family he had left, who had to work day and night to make ends meet. The media ate it up, saint Stark was suddenly a beacon of hope in this kid’s life, helping pay rent, funding projects, giving him an exclusive internship at his company. Even going as far as to buy the kid a new winter coat when he realised he’d been wearing his dead uncle’s old one for the last few years. Or at least that’s what the article said.

Meanwhile, Harley pulled at the sleeves of the same battered coat he’d worn since he was thirteen and assured his mother every morning that it still fit.

Stark got asked about the kid a lot in press conferences and media coverage. They loved the idea of young teen in Stark’s life that had seemingly melted his ‘icy’ heart. And the public ate it up.

“What is it about Peter Parker?” Someone at a press conference a month ago had asked, “What about this particular young man struck a chord in you?”

“He’s a good kid.” Stark had said, “He’s a good kid who’s had a rough time and has been through a lot of shit, pardon my French, that no one should really have to go through. And he’s talented. And extremely smart, heck, he could have given me a run for my money at fifteen. Just don’t tell him that.”

The room of reporters had chuckled in response.

“I see the future in Peter Parker.” Stark had claimed, “I see boundless talent and intelligence and grit and drive that is a very rare find in anyone, let alone a teenager. I want to help him on his way to the future that he deserves. And I truly believe that, someday, the world will thank me for it. And he deserves a chance.”

“So, you want to mould him into the Tony Stark of the future?” One particularly suspicious reporter asked, “Is that your agenda here?”

“God, no.” He’d replied, eliciting another peel of laughter, “You know, it’s not news to anyone that old Howard Stark wasn’t exactly father of the year. I was an angry kid with endless resources with a lot contempt and sadness moseying around in my cold, black heart. Peter is a good-hearted kid with limited resources and a difficult family situation with an inspiring amount of determination. And, what I find most fascinating, a sort of boundless sense of hope. Peter’s not me, not by a long shot. He’s better. And he doesn’t exactly have that male role model in his life anymore. And, I mean, it’s debatable whether or not my attempting to fill that place will be detrimental or beneficial. I’ll let you know how that goes when the kid turns eighteen.”

Laughter, again.

“I don’t want Peter Parker to be the ‘Tony Stark of the future’; I want him to be better. I want a better life for him.” He concluded, “Now, are we done talking about Parker? That was grossly sentimental and thanks to you guys the kid’s got enough ammo on me to bust my chops for a month. Much appreciated.”

 

_“Uh, my mom already left for the diner and my dad went to 7/11 to get scratchers. I guess he won because that was six years ago.”_

_“Hm. Which happens. Dads leave, no need to be a pussy about it; here’s what I need-“_

Where was that sentimentality four years ago, Stark?

“Parents leave, money’s tight, life’s hard; no need to be a pussy about it, Peter.” Harley muttered to himself, “- ‘cept poor little genius boy got the better end of the stick, huh?”

At first, Harley didn’t care. He felt almost sympathetic towards the boy. He knew what it was like to be Tony Stark’s golden child and then to be subsequently left in the dust when he went on to bigger and better things. He knew what was coming for Peter Parker.

But when Stark didn’t move on, when Stark became more and more personally involved in this kid’s life; that’s when Harley felt a deep contempt growing in the pit of his stomach.

It might have been easier if Peter was the polar opposite of Harley. If they didn’t come from almost hilariously similar circumstances.

But no. Stark had to find a kid that not only matched Harley; he one upped him.

Harley was smart? Peter was smarter.

Harley made a potato gun out of trash? Peter made a laser.

Harley lived in a rundown old house in the middle of nowhere? Peter lived in a shoe box shitty apartment in the bad part of Queens.

Harley only had his mom? Peter only had his aunt.

Harley’s dad was gone? Peter Parker was a fucking orphan.

Harley had a plucky, brazen attitude despite everything? Tony had to go and find fucking saint Peter of Queens. The one under privileged, genius, orphan kid who apparently watched his fucking uncle die in front of him who looked as if he was about to bust out a chorus or two of tomorrow from Annie whenever someone stuck a stupid camera in his stupid face.

Seriously, Peter Parker was so fucking upbeat and hopeful and charming it was _sickening_.

 Harley glared at the blank tv before, slowly, reaching for the remote and turning the thing on once more.

“- Celebratory ice cream for Stark’s favourite genius?” Said a reporter, along with a shot of Stark and Parker laughing together with matching cones, “A candid moment captured that seemingly encapsulates the surprising relationship that’s touched America’s hearts. Now, let’s take a look back on the bond between Stark and Parker, starting at the moment they first caught our attent-“

The reporter was cut off when Harley’s long laboured with mechanical arm collided with the screen and went straight through the old set.

Harley breathed heavily through gritted teeth, staring silently at the mess he’d made.

He pulled the arm from the broken glass and shattered metal and plastic and examined the project it had taken him over year to get to the state it was.

“Fuck.” He muttered to himself, as he saw sparks flying from various exposed wires, “Well, that’s another three months in the tool box.”

 _‘It’d be an hour in Stark’s personal lab and a cupcake for the trauma, if my name was Peter Parker’_ He thought, but he kept that remark behind his teeth.

Harley sat down at his work station and switched on the lamp to get a better look at the damage he’d inflicted.

His eyes drifted to a newspaper cut out he’d long forgotten about, on the wall adjacent to his desk.

It was Tony, stepping out of his plane the day after he took down the mandarin, with Harley’s help. The headline read:

‘Mandarin foiled! Stark claims: I didn’t work alone.’

Harley gave a short, bitter laugh at the memory of the excitement he felt when he first saw that headline. He really thought Stark would mention him.

_“Admit it, you need me. We’re connected.”_

_“What I need is for you to go home, be with your mom, keep your trap shut, guard the suit and stay connected to the telephone; because if I call, you better pick up, okay? Can you feel that? We’re done here. Move out of the way or I’m gonna run you over. Bye kid.”_

_Tony paused for a moment before driving away. He rolled down the widow._

_“I’m sorry, kid. You did good.”_

_“So, now you’re just gonna leave me here? Like my dad?”_

_“Yup.” Said Stark, before looking at him with suspicion, “Wait, you’re guilt tripping me aren’t you?”_

_“I’m cold.”_

_“I can tell.” Said Stark, imitating Harley’s fake pout, “You know how I can tell? ‘Cause we’re connected.”_

_And then Stark drove off. And Harley Keener never saw him face to face again._

Harley glared at the poster, never feeling more hatred in his life than staring at Stark’s stupid, smiling face on his stupid wall.

“Fuck you, Tony Stark.” He muttered, “Fuck. You.”

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think that Tony never really forgot about Harley. But the MCU make it seem that way.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story! If you did, let me know in the comments!


End file.
